Monday, July 17, 2017

Jehovah’s Witnesses in North Caucasus Fear Repression Will Grow Worse if Appeal Fails

Paul
Goble

Staunton, July 17 – Since the
Russian Supreme Court ordered the liquidation of Jehovah’s Witnesses
communities last spring, members of that denomination in the North Caucasus
have been subject to searches, harassment, the cutting off of communal
services, abuse of children, firings from work, and worsening relations with
their neighbors.

Witnesses fear, the Kavkaz-Uzel
portal reports, that if their appeal to overturn that decision goes wrong,
their situation will deteriorate even further, with officials feeling free to
treat them as outlaws and other people in the region following suit, thus
making their lives almost unbearable (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/306172/).

Yaroslav Sivulsky, a representative
of the Russian Administrative Center for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, says that the
followers of his group in the North Caucasus have suffered as much or more than
the 175,000 Witnesses in Russia as a whole.He adds the Presidential Human Rights ombudsman has been informed and is
concerned, but all are waiting for the appeal.

“A significant number” of violations
of the rights of believers “have taken place in Stavropol and Krasnodar krays,”
but there are also reports of violations and related incidents in the republics
of the North Caucasus, and in Rostov and Astrakhan oblasts as well. Especially
worrisome are cases of police harassment and Witnesses’ being fired from their
jobs.

In one city in Krasnoyarsk kray, the
head of a pre-school fired a Jehovah’s Witness because, she said, her “organization
has been recognized as ‘extremist’” and therefore “she cannot work in this institution,”
Sivulsky reports.Similar problems have
occurred in other places as well.

Even more frequently, police have
challenged people as to whether they are Witnesses and plan to continue
missionary activity and meetings. The Witnesses about whom he has information
say that they are obeying the law and won’t meet as long as there is a law
against it, but they declare that they are believers and will remain so “to the
end of their days.”

The Jehovah’s Witnesses in Daghestan
report that the authorities haven’t taken dramatic steps against them yet but
that they fear that will happen if the court rules against their appeal,
something most of them expect. At the same time, Witnesses in that republic say
they fear what the population will do if they continue to be called “extremists.”

Konstantin Yelavsky, a
representative of the Jehovah’s Witnesses community in Sochi, says that things
have deteriorated to the point that “we have ceased to meet in kingdom halls for
services. Of course, no Witness has ceased to believe: we simply have begun to
get together in another way, at home with our friends and fellow believers.” It
is a matter of security.

“People have begun to consider us
not as people who have a different faith but as what the media says extremists.
This has begun to influence attitudes toward our children in school,” where
teachers now force Witnesses to celebrate holidays that their faith tells them
not to. “Earlier they respected our opinion.” Now, they don’t.

And Konstantin Sedov, a Witness elder
in Volgograd oblast, reports that in his region, the police are raiding the homes
of witnesses, confiscating literature, and initiating criminal and
administrative proceedings. The Witnesses, he says, remain unbowed: “No one can
prohibit us from believing in God: we [simply] are assembling in small groups.”